NSW joins national drive for e-health procurement

1 September, 2008. NSW Health will support a national electronic catalogue for health purchasing expected to deliver substantial safety and quality benefits to the Australian health sector.

The National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) today announced that NSW Health, with assistance from the NSW Department of Commerce, would use the National Product Catalogue (NPC) as their primary source of purchasing data to drive cost savings and process efficiencies across the sector.
As the NPC is a national program, an estimated $200 million[1] in savings is expected to flow on from reduced errors and increased procurement efficiencies across the national health sector as well as reducing the incidence of delayed patient treatment.

The product catalogue uniquely identifies each healthcare product, including all medicines and medical devices and equipment, and records important supply chain and clinical information about those products such as the components of products and pack sizes.

All new health-specific State Contract Control Board (SCCB) tenders will be mandated to load all contract item information onto the NPC replacing the need to load contract product data onto NSW's Smartbuy® system. Health-specific SCCB contractors would only need to load data once, saving suppliers' time and increasing the accuracy of the data stored.

According to NEHTA, which established the NPC in 2006, the agreement between NSW Health and the NSW Department of Commerce is another boost for the profile of e-procurement in the health sector.

Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and Australian Capital Territory already use the National Product Catalogue.

"The need to move towards a single product repository has long been recognised as the most effective method for health related product purchasing", said Ken Nobbs, Program Manager - Medical Products, NEHTA. "This decision gives a clear message that the NSW government is fully supportive of the NPC going forward, aligning with the support of all other governments" said Mr Nobbs.

"From a public health perspective, e-procurement has huge safety and quality benefits", said NSW Health Manager Procurement Information Valentino Bulaon.

"The NPC lays the foundations for this process and we are happy to endorse it as the preferred data source for purchasing", he said.

NSW Health has undertaken to relay Health-specific contract product information to the NSW Department of Commerce to facilitate, through Smartbuy®, access by other NSW government agencies. Both departments have emphasised that the decision to use the NPC as the preferred source of data is integral to a strategy to progress an end-to-end service around e-procurement for healthcare.

[1]KPMG, October 2002 Product Numbering Standards for Electronic Health Supply Chains.